sources of discomfort

 Thursday, February 15, 2024

 

Tuesday, we had a visit to a nearby Hindu temple, Rathnahereeswarar. I must admit from the outset, I do not know as much about the Hindu religion––the gods and goddesses and rites––as I do about the underlying philosophy. There was the fine teaching of Huston Smith that has influenced my approach right along: every religion can be approached from its devotional aspect (even Taoism, which is where I first ran into Smith’s distinction), from its philosophical aspect, or from its practice, its “yoga” if you will. The latter two interest me a lot. As for the first, the devotional aspect, while the ritual has some anthropological (and musical interest) with my background in liturgy (which Bruno said was my saving grace in approaching comparative religion), my main response is usually that I’ve been struggling for years to get behind my own mythological language to the phenomenological truths behind it. So it does not behoove me to add another layer of mythology and iconography on top of it. Just another mythical language that I would need to get past.

 

I’ve been having a series of intense conversations with a friend who lives in Europe about a wide range of topics––from classic rock n’ roll to mysticism, my two great loves––and his insights into the world situation are really good for my narrow perspective. He is not a Christian, but he asks me, not in a challenging way, a lot of things about Christianity and my own response to things as a monk-priest. It’s also good for me to clarify my own thoughts on things trying to explain myself. I had to confess to him that I could speak for orthodox Christianity or I could express my own opinions, which I am not sure always coincide with orthodox Christianity’s expression of some fundamental truths. Please notice how carefully I phrased that. Even when I “disagree” with my own tradition, I usually say something like “I am not sure I understand that, but this is what orthodox Christianity teaches,” or “I have a different way of describing that.” I think this is what I have been attempting to do in all four books I have written so far, along with speak both to the absolute unbeliever and to the orthodox believer, as I am always trying to do in homilies. One time one of our monks referred to what I was teaching the community as “speculative theology,” which I found interesting. Not sure I am to be taken seriously as a “real” theologian, but there it is, speculative theology. Va bene!

 

At any rate… I digress as usual. Toward the end of my idyllic Santa Cruz years, I was describing my ministry, my apostolate, if you will, as the evolution of consciousness, trying to evolve my own and encouraging others to evolve too. Very affected by Ken Wilber’s work obviously. Thomas Keating was somewhat there as well. One of the two books he encouraged me to read in 2017 (and I still haven’t finished my homework!) was Wilber’s The Religion of Tomorrow. And I go back to this quote of his often:

The primary issue for the human family at its present level of evolutionary development is to become fully human. But that means discovering our connectedness to God, which was repressed somewhere in early childhood.*

I had breakfast in Santa Cruz with two friends, who are both educators, just before I left for Asia. One of them was describing how in ancient myths characters are often named after their purpose. I speculated out loud that my name might be “Consciousness Evolver,” to which one of my interlocutors immediately responded, “A little pretentious, but okay.” 

 

All that to say two things. First: in my conversations with my European friend I keep coming to the conclusion, thus far kind of inchoate in my own mind, that not only is that the mission I want to take up again (I even brought it up at my meeting in Singapore with the Tanglin folks), but it’s more urgent than ever given that among the children of Abraham, between extreme Zionist Israelis justifying their oppression and now slaughter of Palestinians on biblical grounds, conservative Christians supporting Donald Trump (who I consider to be the embodiment of evil, maybe even the Anti-Christ, at least anti-Christ) as if he were the Cyrus come to save Israel (and destroying the environment on the side, or at least fighting any attempt to protect it), and radical Islamists, it’s that magical/mythical mindset that is going to be the downfall of the human race. We’ve got to get a better understanding of the Divine, including we Christians who still have not caught up with the God of Jesus (the real subject of The God Who Gave You Birth). 

 

And secondly: I am finally reading Wilber’s The Spectrum of Consciousness. What I already know about the book I have gleaned from his later writings, but I never have been able to make my way through it. But I ran into it here in the library at Shantivanam and, knowing the Bede thought very highly of it, I might just be reading his own copy.

 

Here are a few lines that got me.

 

The avowed aim of most Western approaches is variously stated as strengthening the ego, integrating the self, correcting one’s self-image, building self confidence, the establishing of realistic goals, and so on. …

            … the central aim of most Eastern approaches is not to strengthen the ego but to completely and totally transcend it, to attain moksha (liberation), te (virtue of the Absolute), satori (enlightenment). These approaches claim to tap a level of consciousness that offers total freedom and complete release from the root cause of all suffering, that outs to rest our most puzzling questions about the nature of Reality… (22)

 

He is suggesting of course, with the image of the spectrum, that these are not opposing approaches but rather different areas of the spectrum, like various wavelengths. He would stress and I would agree, both are needed! A lot of my own pastoral approach has been the first, the remedial work needed by so many people, including myself, to build up a healthy sense of self that can face and function in the world without limping and hiding because of our wounds. But the second approach (so-called Eastern) is very much in keeping what I understand the contemplative path to be and very much in keeping with the spiritualty of Jesus. (Hence, again, The God Who Gave You Birth.) 

 

We need to have an ego to get beyond the ego. You are marvelous. Now get over yourself.

 

All that to say… that’s one of the reasons I don’t really enjoy visiting Hindu temples––I’m only tangentially interested in the very complicated iconography and pantheon of Hinduism. Another reason added to that is that I am always very careful not to take part in temple rituals unless I am constricted to. I would never want to be perceived as worshipping other gods. (Their drink offerings I will not pour out nor take their name upon my lips, as the psalm says.) A third reason is that, for all my time in front of people as a performer and teacher/preacher, I do not like to stick out in a crowd. And particularly deep in the south of India in the small cities where we are there are not a lot of white people. I don’t stick out as much as some––imagine being here with a 6’4” blond Pole named Roman who didn’t speak a word of English my first trip here in 2000. German Jeremias, on the other hand, is probably more conspicuous than I, tall and thin and he was wearing the kavi dhoti with his shawl wrapped around his head (as he had learned to do in the Holy Land). But when we were at the temple, he was stopping at every shrine along the way to meditate and pray and take pictures, heedless of the glances and comments about a white guy dressed as a swami in a Hindu temple. (I had opted to wear civvies, for the same above reasons.) 

And then two other things added to my discomfort. One was the monkeys were very aggressive. They are known to steal anything you are carrying in hope to find food or to hold your possession ransom until you exchange it for food, including iPhones. They were particularly after our plastic water bottles which Dorathick had bought at a stand on the way in. He, like a good shepherd, wound up finding a large branch which he wielded to shoo them off when shouting at them didn’t work. He told us that they can bite and scratch, and if you are bit you have to immediately go to the doctor and get rabies shots. I had had run-ins with monkeys before in Malaysia while out jogging. I was told not to look them in the eye. I remember my skin crawling as I passed a whole family of them once watching this hairless ape with blue jogging shorts prance by. And the last thing is, I do not find the statues and images in Hindu temples at all consoling or edifying. Maybe fascinating but some of them strike me as terrifying and very primitive, wrapped in cloth with garlands around them and various marking on their foreheads. 

 

It was a climb of 1100 steps and we were fortunate to have gone in the morning because it was already swelteringly hot. There were various shrines along the way. What made it somewhat easier was listening to Dorathick explain various aspects and symbols along the way. He is very knowledgeable about the Hindu tradition and especially seems rather proud of the particularly South Indian version of it. One of the things he reminded me of was that Shiva is acknowledged in three ways: with form, in a formless form, and formless, the latter aspect being the one that passes into the Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism, the aspect that Abhishiktananda was particularly fascinated with and in honor of whom he wrote poems and prayers. It’s that latter aspect that also interests me.

 

We passed the place where people wrap colored cloths around a tree to pray for pregnancy; we passed the effigies of the seven virgins who dedicated their lives to praising Lord Shiva; we passed a wall that contained 1000-year-old Tamil script that even Dorathick had trouble reading. And finally, we were at the top. The whole place was generally not well kept––I am spoiled from pristine Ramanashram at Tiruvanamalai; there was garbage all over the place. And it wasn’t much better in the actual temple at the top: lots of broken equipment laying around besides garbage, and it was dank and there was a bad smell of old ghee and rotting flowers. 

 

It being a temple of course there were Brahmin priests there, but they were just coming on duty so the shrine was not open to visitors yet . (The monkeys were there too, climbing straight up the sheer walls and trying to sneak into the inner shrine. The priests were just as aggressive trying to keep them out.) The holy of holies houses a rendering of the second way in which Shiva is acknowledged, the formless form of the lingam, basically unapologetically phallic in nature. This particular temple houses a famous broken lingam, that had been damaged by someone with a sword and had reportedly bled. Jeremias was entranced with this story (I suppose the broken phallus would have some resonance with a lot of men.) When they finally opened the shrine, we were treated like visiting dignitaries which, again, I do not enjoy. They urged us to go in first, they offered us garlands that we in turn gave to the priest who in turn placed it on the lingam for us. Our two garlands fell off almost immediately which I was told was actually a good augur, for some reason. We then toured the rest of the adjoining shrine rooms. There was one beautiful Nataraja––King Dancer, which I loved, but some of the other images I found very jarring. They were coming to my mind still in meditation this morning.

 

I couldn’t wait to get out of there, though I think I succeeded in hiding my discomfort from the others. Jeremias was meanwhile stopping at every possible shrine and meditating or praying and expressing his admiration. I am not sure what I feel about that, to be honest, but God bless his fearlessness.

 

As we headed back down, young Arvind, from Orissa, and I were way ahead of Dorathick and Jeremias, who both have a tendency to stop and talk which they were living up to. (Another quirk of mine: I do not like to stop and talk when I am walking. I either walk and talk or I sit down and talk.) 

 

That’s when two of my discomforts came together. A monkey got very aggressive with me as I was now carrying the water bottle. I just shooed him a way, then yelled a little more loudly and waved my hands at him. But he would not go away and was hissing and reaching out his arms for my pant leg. A woman seated on the ground was speaking to me in Tamil and gesturing what I assumed to mean that I should give the monkey my water bottle. I did not want to let him win and so I kept up my shooing, but the monkey got more aggressive yet. She sort of yelled at me then and made a gesture like “Just give him the bottle!” And so I dropped the bottle on the ground. The monkey grabbed it, unscrewed the top (!) with his nimble little fingers and lifted it up just like a human would, drank, and then threw it on the ground so that the rest of the water spilled out and several other monkeys came to join in for the open bar. At that point, still trying to look nonchalant, and I think pulling it off pretty well, I realized that my legs were literally shaking, something I have never experienced before. Arvind did not look too pleased with the whole situation either and so we made it the rest of the way down and found a nice little shaded place to sit and wait for our confreres. 

 

Unfortunately, that’s when I started drawing all kinds of attention. People passing by kept staring at me and asking me (I suppose) in Tamil, where I was from. Arvind doesn’t really speak Tamil since he is from Orissa, but he knew enough to say to them (I assume), “He doesn’t speak Tamil.” And then they would ask him something else and he would say (I assume), “I don't speak Tamil either.” And then I heard him say several times, “Shantivanam,” which seemed to be a satisfying explanation, and then, pointing to himself, say “Orissa” and pointing to me, “California USA” which folks found fascinating. Totally uninhibited to stop right in front of me and look at me, point at me and say things, including a group of young guys who I thought were about to make trouble for us, but didn’t. Finally, two women stopped who would not leave, and stayed all the way until Dorathick arrived first, and then Jeremias, who was in the meantime filming a procession on his iPhone. Dorathick explained everything to them in full. They then wanted to take a picture with us and even offered to take us out for tea. (Dorathick turned them down for that.) 

Me, Arvind, and Jeremias flanked by our two curious lady friends.

I was glad to be back in the car and back at Shantivanam. It really does feel like a little paradise in the midst of all this. The surrounding land is not at all beautiful. It’s dry and dusty and full of garbage everywhere, worse than in years past. The river is a mess from the excavating of sand and the construction of yet another bore well to take water from the river and send it to even drier places. The images of Bede taking his daily walks along the Cauvery are a thing of the past. I have just about given up taking walks in the afternoon. And of course, there seems to be hardly any place in this area where you don’t run into another little town, every one of which seems to bustle in the same way. This Forest of Peace on the other hand, now with high walls and guarded gates, seems more than ever like an oasis.

 

Jeremias was going to leave on Sunday but he decided that he wanted to see one more temple near Chennai. So, he and Dorathick, with Pinto driving, left at 4 AM to visit the temple and then drop Jeremias in Chennai where he will stay for a few nights before flying out. The other two may stay the night out as well since there is someone else they need to pick up in the morning from Trichy. I considered going with them and if it hadn’t been for the 4 AM departure, the thought of spending over eight hours in the car again and a night away, I might have gone, just to spend time with them. But I have happily opted to stay home, help shore up the community at prayer (there’s hardly anyone here!) and continue my Lenten retreat. 

 

And try to deal with Lord Shiva who keeps creeping into my consciousness.

---

*Thomas Keating, Invitation to Love in Foundations for Centering Prayer and the Christian Contemplative Life, 164.

a clash of cultures

 11 feb 24, Sunday

 

The ordination yesterday was of course a joyous occasion for the community as well as for the ordinand, Rippon. It was also a bit of a clash of cultures. The local bishop, Savarimurthu Arokiaraj, even though he himself retreated here years ago and knew Fr. Bede, has made it known that he did not approve of sitting on the ground, I suppose both for the assembly as well as for the presider, as we do here at the ashram. So a special altar was erected just for the day and a load of red and blue plastic chairs were brought in. And then I started seeing one at a time many of our monks show up not wearing the kavi robes but the white Camaldolese habit instead. Of course, our Prior General Matteo and Marino, his assistant, were here too and up to this point they had been wearing comfortable street clothes for prayers, both of them hesitant to take the risk on wearing a dhoti (I recounted to Marino that I understood this fear: the first time I was here I tied mine up with a belt), though Matteo did wear a kavi shirt. But now they too of course were in full habit and cowl, with a chasuble to be put on over that. I was feeling somewhat underdressed. Not only do I not have any of the habit with me (not even the cowl––I wasn’t expecting to need it here), but the kavi dhoti I have has got stains in it and little holes from wear and tear, and my jippa is a little too small for me. So I was feeling like a bit of a ragamuffin. Jeremias was also in kavi, but he always looks sharp.

 

As Jeremias and I were sitting in the chapel waiting for the service to begin, we were approached by one of the young monks and told very sternly that we had to go and vest up with a chasuble and stole because “this bishop wants all priests to be vested.” Now, that seemed to me to be kind of absurd––putting an ornate (Indian style) silky chasuble over a beat up dhoti. Still we dutifully went out to try to obey, but after a moment we both decided not to vest after all, especially as we saw a few other monks clothed only in kavi come in and sit in the back. There’s the weird clash: some of Indian Catholics do not like or are suspicious of the adaptation to Indian (which they see as “Hindu”) customs. So Dorathick did his best to adapt everything to what he thought the bishop would approve of for this ordination.

 

The procession began with our young guys belting out a popular Tamil hymn, every one of them with their own microphone (in that little church!) accompanied by a simply professed named Johnson on a keyboard complete with its own drum machine. It was very loud. There was a whole line of priests, vested properly, followed by the bishop who, as he came in, was slowly blessing everyone to his left and right as he made his way to the temporary altar. High church bishop meets “popular” music meets monks in kavi robes meets plastic chairs. I was wondering what Matteo was making of all this, he who is such a fine liturgist, so much so that he arranges liturgies for the Vatican. And I wondered how often something like that plays out around the world. At New Camaldoli ordinations have not been so hard to accommodate to our style of liturgy, just the Roman Rite stripped down to its basics, but I have to believe with an open-minded bishop the same could have been done here.

 

The whole liturgy lasted almost two and a half hours, including the photo-taking at the end. One of the guys from Kerala told me that there ordinations take at least four hours, but of course that’s a different rite. I sang one song with the guitar during the laying on of hands, oddly enough something I wrote years ago and have never sung anywhere before, a setting of Psalm 110––“You are a priest forever.” I had to scrape my memory to come up with the verses and wrote them down on a scrap of paper that I balanced on my knee. And then I led a bhajan at communion time as well, which everyone joined in on. But I was feeling a little conspicuous by this time, as if I were a Westerner “going native.”

 

The other little clash I was thinking of was Bede and Abhishiktananda’s vision of Christian monasticism/sannyasa as compared with institutional monasticism. (The abbot of Asirvanam was there as well.) They really did want to get back to “monk as renunciate,” and Bede was clear, as we Camaldolese are very clear, that priesthood is a different vocation than monk. If anything, they saw the sannyasi as going beyond ritual. They both still participated ‘til the end but in a much stripped-down sort of way. I found a copy of Jesu Rajan’s book Bede Griffiths and Sannyasi in the library and went immediately to one section on that, part of the long interview with Bede in the appendix.

 

For a priest his primary duty is his ministry and service. Once you become a sannyāsin your primary call is for prayer, meditation and seeking God alone and everything else is secondary. Everything else has to flow from that. Even in Hinduism the priest is not a sannyasin. They are quite different. … If we mix up the priesthood with sannyasa we lose the contemplative dimension which is the essence of sannyasa.

 

Sorry if that sounds too critical––I’m trying to be objective. I know that there are few who have the skill set or background to hold all these things together. Again I was remembering an experience at Tiruvanamalai years ago, with the Brahmin priests performing their rituals and chanting the Vedas and very conspicuous in the distinctive dhotis, bodily markings and jewelry, and then the kavi clad sannyasis sitting in the back, watching, silently.

 

At any rate we had a wonderful lunch celebration afterward. The women in the kitchen had been working since the wee hours of the morning to prepare for it. There was a serving line and it seemed like it was all-hands-on-deck with the staff feeding all the invited guests. Rippon had quite a few members of his family, young and old, staying here––they had traveled three days on the train! And of course there was the whole retinue of local priests and some of Rippon’s faculty and classmates. All in all, it was probably a more subdued affair than usual ordinations, but Rippon left with his family now for more celebrations in his hometown.

 

It was a bit of a letdown already by evening prayer and the evening meal that night, so many had already left. But this morning it was quite a crash: the young guys left to go back to school early this morning and the Italians left last night to go home on the redeye via Dubai, and several monks were missing for various reasons. By midday prayer and lunch, we were so few that we had lunch self-service.

 

Again, I am here with nothing to do, so now I will switch into retreat mode––whatever that will look like––for the next few weeks.

 

Monday 12 feb

 

I’m reading a 700 plus page novel called The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese (I read his Cutting for Stone some years ago and really enjoyed it). It takes place in South India. I just read a passage about a Causcasian doctor named Digby who has been transferred to Tamil Nadu. This paragraph (page 105) suited me perfectly.

 

If Digby had anyone at home to write to, he might catalog these morning sights, described the small framed handsome Tamils with their sharp Roman features, bright glittering eyes, and ready smiles. Next to them he feels pale, blotchy, and much too vulnerable to the sun.

 

I laughed out loud. Not to mention stiff and mushy! I’m in generally pretty good shape, thanks be to God and regular exercise and yoga. But, as I always say, I find that India is tough on the body, at least life in the ashram. I’m used to sitting on the floor a lot at home, but not this much! Two hours of meditation, once in the morning and once in the evening, plus the prayer and all the meals. And on hard hard granite or cement floors, not my cushy zabutan or the faux-Persian rug in my cell. That in addition to the many hours on the plane and in cars the last week, I feel as stiff as a board. So per forza I need to stretch first thing every morning before I head to chapel for morning meditation. I was reminded of one of those early foundational lessons I learned studying yoga and that I always try to pass on, especially to skeptical Christians: we do these asanas so that we can sit in meditation longer, pure and simple. They are not ends nor even goals; they’re a means to that goal and the end is realizing the indwelling Divine for which we must be very, very still. “God always speaks his word in eternal silence and in silence it must be heard.”

 

I don’t remember it being emphasized as a communal practice to much in past visits, but Dorathick faithfully observes the 5:30-6:30 PM meditation, beginning with nama japa and the evening one from 6 to 7 PM. Few other monks come for it except for the formation guys, but Jeremias and I have been going whenever possible. There truly is something powerful about the commitment to a common practice like that, instead of relying on my own personal practice for which it’s too easy to cut corners. 

 

It's Monday now, almost Lent. It will be interesting to make this my Lenten retreat here in this desert.  I do not think there will be any Mardi Gras festivities tomorrow. Dorathick, at Jeremias’ request (insistence), is taking us to a Hindu temple today where we are to climb over 1000 steps. Sounds more like the beginning of a Lenten penitential practice than a Fat Tuesday party. I’ve already stated that I am not going to attempt it wearing a dhoti…

 9 Feb 2024, from Shantivanam

 

As I sat down on the granite floor in the eating hall at Sri Ramana Ashram, unfolded my banana leaf and washed it down with a few drops of water from the little metal cup, I was surprised by how familiar it all was to me yet, even my body somehow knew what to do, in spite of not having been in India for 12 years now. I noticed that my ankles don’t bother me as much as they used to when I sit directly on the unforgivingly hard floor. I had already been in the country for 24 hours but when I tasted the biryani that was slopped on to my “plate” from the bucket with the sambhar and a little bit of pickle it was one of those perfect culinary moments. Maybe I was just extra hungry, but though it was no doubt nothing special it tasted like the most delicious Indian food I had ever tasted.

 

After wandering Arab Street on my own looking for breakfast (wound up very Western with a raisin scone and cappuccino) and packing up, Mark picked me up, and brought me to Changi good and early. They have marvelous food courts there and we enjoyed a delicious vegetable udon in a Japanese restaurant and one last long conversation before I went through security and waited out my flight to Delhi. 

 

I didn’t know exactly what my plans were going to be for my time in India and so, with the thought that I might go north for a bit, I booked my arrival through Delhi. And also with the thought that I might stay with Michael Christian at Sri Ramana Ashram in Tiruvanamalai, as I did many time in the past before going down to Shantivanam, I then got a quick flight down to Chennai where he, as always, arranged a car for me. As it turns out, our brother monk Jeremias from Germany was also there at Tiru on retreat at the ashram where he goes once a year, and he and MC both wanted to go down to Shantivanam by yesterday in time for an ordination which will take place today. All that to say, it would have been a lot easier to fly directly to Trichy from Singapore and I would have been here two days ago instead of an extra flight, a three-hour drive from Chennai to Tiru, one night there and then another four-hour drive down here yesterday. 

 

The flight into Delhi was uneventful and I easily (with Devin’s fine instructions) got myself a pre-paid taxi (though I figured out later I paid twice as much as I should have) that took me to my hotel, the Hotel Shanti Palace, near the airport (again with Devin’s help; I had gone through two other failed bookings already). It was not quite as nice as it appeared on Expedia, but it was cleaner and quieter than I expected. So I got a good night’s sleep, headed back to the airport and flew down the Chennai, where I met my driver, Ramesh, who carted me east to the ashram at Tiruvanamalai. 

 

This time it struck me more than ever the contrast as we headed inland from Chennai. I was feeling rather under-dressed at the airports in Delhi and Chennai, both of which places all very sophisticated and modernized. I was struck by the variety of cars as well. When I first started coming to India there was only one model of car in the road, the 1958 model Ambassador left behind by the British, always white in color. And a few assorted SUV-truck type vehicles. Now there are cars of every shape and color and brand, and many with air-conditioning. (I only found out much later that car services charge more if you use the AC.) All evidence of the burgeoning, or burgeoned, middle class. But as we drove east into Tamil Nadu, the garb became more traditional, lungis and saris, and the poverty was more and more evident. The roads, on the other hand, are vastly improved almost everywhere, smooth and wide.

 

Tiruvanamalai was as chaotic as ever, dusty and loud and churning with activity. As we got closer to the ashram there were more and more non-Indians since the ashram is a destination spot for many spiritual tourists.

 

For those reading who don’t have the context, Tiruvnamalai is the home of one of the four great Hindu temples in south India, the Arunachaleswarer Annamalaiyar Temple which is built at the foot of the holy mountain Arunachala, and which is considered to be a symbol of Shiva. The great saint Ramana Maharshi, after his enlightenment experience at the age of 16, traveled and settled there in the early 20^th century, first to the temple, then in a cave on the mountain, then in a small ashram halfway up the mountain, and gradually a large ashram was built at the foot of the mountain where he spent most of his life, and where countless people came through the years to receive his darshan. The ashram also now houses a large Brahmin community and a training ground for young Brahmin priests. Our Abhishiktananda spent a considerable amount of time there in the 1950s, in the presence of Ramana himself, but also living in a cave on the mountain for a time, and then with his own guru, Gnanananda, at another nearby ashram. Bede Griffiths also visited there, though it didn’t have the significance for him that it did for Abhishiktananda. Because of all that it is a well-known place for our lineage of monks in India, a significant part of our history. I had been there many times, I think every time I came to India, and had also done some work with JP, a Lutheran pastor who runs an interfaith center called Quo Vadis, and through him met the Danish Lutheran group, Danmission, there as well, who then brought me to Denmark, Lebanon and Syria. I did what I think of as a “famous” concert there in 2006, the first time I had performed in India, at an outdoor theatre, also the first time I worked with a tabla player, the young Theophilus Gnananavaram. But I have written about all the before––now years ago!

 

I was a little sad that I had so little time at Arunachala. But I did get to do almost everything that I was longing to do. I got up early and first sat in the meditation hall and then in the large samadhi hall. But most of all I got to climb up the mountain to my two favorite spots, which is something I did pretty much every single day that I had been there in the past. The first spot was Skanda Ashram, that first little place that was built for Ramana before the ashram below was built. I had forgotten how long a climb it was to get up there, so it was great exercise too. And then from there one descends down to Virupaksa Cave. That is a place that remains in my mind, along with the Western Wall in Jerusalem, as the most powerful energetic place I have experienced on earth. Especially in 2005 I spent hours in that cave until I was dripping with sweat. I was reminiscing about a Japanese sadhu named Nyogi that I met there that year and spent hours with, particularly at Virupaksha cave and looked back at my travelogues from that time. Here's one paragraph.

 

I headed back up to the cave for the rest of the afternoon. After a false start or two I wound up beginning up the mountain just as Nyogi was going and so we walked up, pretty much silently, together. At Skanda ashram Nyogi turned up to climb to the top of Arunachala to see Shiva’s footprint, and I headed down to the cave. It is my favorite place here. … Meditating in a cave in the heart of a mountain that is supposed to be Shiva himself; meditating on the cave of my own heart to hear the OM that sounds there like a shruti. 

 

In the back half of the cave there is a wide shelf built up, in the middle of which is a reproduction of the mountain done in clay or cement, covered with khavi cloth and topped with two garlands. At one point shortly after I got there a young devotee came in, hopped up there and sat perfectly upright immediately next to and facing the mountain reproduction, and stayed there for as long as I was there, so attentive and yet so serene in meditation. I was thinking yet again about the purpose of yoga, to train the senses and still the mind so that the real yukta(union) can take place, the union with the Atman, the union of indwelling Spirit with our own spirit. To predispose the body to be a place of encounter with the divine, a temple of the Holy Spirit.

 

Unfortunately, I was wearing my hiking shorts that morning and when I got to the cave there was a sign clearly warning that entering the cave in shorts was a sign of disrespect. So I sat out in the courtyard for a bit of time and headed back down the mountain to shower, pack, and then lunch and the drive here. My plans for the second half of this stay in India are a little fluid at present and as we drove off, I kept thinking that perhaps I’ll go back to Tiru before I leave for Singapore for some more time on and in the mountain.

a series of meals and conversations

 5 february 2024

Early morning yoga on the terrace off the second floor. 

Just before dawn, muffled roard of air conditioning compressors

already a little buzz of traffic. 

 

Gently wafting up from below in the street 

the smell of incense from one of the food stalls.

I’m imagining a vendor doing his morning offering before beginning work.

Then a few minutes later the smell of grease on the skillet 

and the slapping sound, shaping of some chappati or pratas to be fried.

Then the faint smell of cardamom as the chai is prepared.

 

It has been such an unusual trip to Singapore for me this time. First of all because I have had no “work” to do, no retreat to lead or concert to perform or interreligious dialogue event to attend. And secondly because I am staying in a hotel in a part of town I have never stayed in before. I have always stayed with the friars at St. Mary of the Angels, except for one quick trip when I stayed with Leonard Ong. This time, as I mentioned, I am staying smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood proudly known as Little India, and it could for all the world be India except for the fact that there are Chinese and Malay Muslim (as well as Vietnamese and Japanese) shops scattered throughout the neighborhood as well.

I have pretty much had the mornings to myself. And the rest of the day I have spent doing what the main purpose of this stopover was from the beginning, not just an acclimatization to Asia but some time to visit with a number of folks in this area and a chance to be in a place that I had grown quite fond of in the years of intense traveling and have genuinely missed. One time in the middle of the traveling years I said to John Wong, OFM, I feel like I should get a room here I’m here so much. And he said to me, without missing a beat, “Cyprian, you have a room here,” meaning there with the friars.

My main contact here from the very beginning, 2006, was first of all the above mentioned Leonard Ong, who at the time was the representative for the World Community for Christian Meditation. I had had a layover at Changi Airport in 2005. I was exhausted from the flight and thought that it was the most beautiful comfortable airport I had ever seen. And as we were flying out over the island a few hours later I also thought that Singapore was the most luscious place I had ever seen. I wrote to Laurence Freeman, asking him if we knew anyone in Singapore. I admit I was just looking for somewhere to crash for a few nights. The next thing I knew I got an email asking me if I would give a concert next time through. And the rest is history. I did a lot of work for the WCCM here, and also in Malaysia mainly with Dr. Pat Por, and then into Indonesia and East Malaysia. Leonard and I also hung out a lot with John Wong, OFM, to the extent that they would at times kidnap me and whisk me off for a few days holiday somewhere. (John is now stationed in Rome for the Order. As a matter of fact, I had lunch with him when I was there in October.)

Now, besides Leonard, I have also had a long friendship with Aaron Maniam, with whom I did several interreligious events back in the day, who consequently fell in love with the Hermitage, became a regular retreatant (and a super spreader, always bringing new folks to experience the place), then an oblate (our first Muslim oblate; I received his oblation at the Harmony Center/mosque here in 2016), and a facilitator of future planning sessions for the community. The guys loved him, by the way. He in turn introduced me to Keith Toh, entrepreneur and all-around genius, who has become a good friend. At the time Keith was living in San Francisco. James, our former monk, and I sang for his wedding in Sausalito, which was quite a memorable occasion. There is a photo of the four of us––Keith, Aaron, James, and I––dressed to the nines that is one of my favorite photos of all time. Keith has served for a few years now on the Financial Advisory Board for the Hermitage and is getting me involved in something with the Tanglin Institute, which I will be able to inform more about later. 

There is also here Mark Hansen, who has been the one mostly responsible for taking care of me on this trip. Mark is a long-time friend the Camaldolese, first of all close to Sr. Donald and the nuns in Windsor, New York, then the monks at Incarnation in Berkeley, and last but not least of us as well, and also has served faithful on the Financial Advisory Board. I can honestly say that I received some of the best supportive advice from him during my term as prior. It is he who arranged for me to stay here at the Wanderlust and has been arranging/organizing us all to get together. Actually tonight is the first time we will most of us be together. Keith was in India and just got back yesterday but he hurt his back and will not be able to attend. But Aaron, who is now teaching at Oxford, happened to have an engagement back here this week, so he arrived just yesterday morning. We will be celebrating his birthday tonight, two days belated, at Leonard’s. 

What is wonderful is that all of them have become pretty good friends to each other as well. In addition, we have another young man who became a Camaldolese oblate, Brian. He and his wife are becoming part of the circle as well.

Mark, Dianne, me, Brian, Cynthia, Leonard

Pat Por introduced me to her son Geoff, a journalist for the Straits Times, who used to take me running back in the day. I met him and his wife and children for lunch yesterday. And Pat and her husband Joe, with whom I drove up and down the Malaysia peninsula several times, are coming in tomorrow for Chinese New Year. We are meeting for dinner tomorrow.

The other connection here in Singapore is Jeff Plein and his son Luke. Young Luke wanted to have a monastic experience as part of his school curriculum but he was a bit young for us to accept for an extended stay. So his Dad, Jeff, came with him. They pitched camp in the Ranch House, Jeff burned the midnight oil online as manager of several branches of Citibank here in southeast Asia (he is now Chief Operating Officer for the Asia-Pacific Region of a leading global professional services firm called Aon), while Luke immersed himself in our “daily round and common task.” They both had a great experience and Luke especially, now a freshman at Yale, has kept up a frequent correspondence with several of the monks. Jeff wanted to get together and introduce me to his wife and daughter, so that will probably happen Wednesday morning before I fly to Delhi that afternoon.

So, as you see, this is really a social visit––yes, a bit of time to acclimatize to Asia and get ready for India, but even more to spend time with wonderful people that I am so blessed to have  in my life, “here, there, and everywhere.” I can be nothing but grateful for the way I have been surrounded by such care and fine company.

 

Wednesday 7 Feb

 

Yesterday was my fullest day but it turned out not to be as crowded as I feared. I started out meeting Keith for breakfast at a fabulous restaurant overlooking the city. We had a half an hour or so to catch up and then we were joined by a gentleman named Abhra Bhattachearjee who is the Development Director and Head of Foundation for the Tanglin Trust School, the main activity of the day. The Tanglin Trust School is is an international school in Singapore that also runs as a non-profit organization. It was established in 1925, to provide British-based learning with an international perspective for students aged 3–18, almost exclusively ex-pats. They have about 3,500 students. (https://www.tts.edu.sg.) Keith’s own sons go there and he really wanted me to do something for them and also somehow get involved in a retreat center they are establishing in Gipsland, Australia.

Abhra and I had met already over Zoom with Keith from Big Sur, planning this meeting. He’s a jolly guy with a broad background already in education in Australia, India, and Kenya. We immediately gave us each other permission to nerd out and began a wonderful stimulating conversation that carried on from breakfast to the taxi to the school and really for the rest of the morning meeting with several other members of the faculty and staff. We met with a religion teacher and a philosophy teacher as well as the director of programs. Keith and Abhra both wanted me to do something for the school when I comeback through, but our mission was to figure out what. I got a full tour of the incredible facility––not a huge footprint but 11 stories high, typical of Singapore, the music building the athletic facilities as well as the classrooms, and it is very impressive. You can just feel the energy and creativity of the place. Can you imagine a 16 year-old girl who wants to go into music as a career deciding to do, as her year-end project, a piece of music inspired by Kierkegaard’s existentialism? That’s what we’re talking about there. If I understand it correctly the school also now wants to have more and more dialogue with surrounding culture and society, interacting both to learn and to contribute, and of course encourage social involvement on the part of the students. I felt a little out of my depth surrounded by all that competence, I must say, but they seem really excited for me to interact with the community there. It was decided that I will spend on hour with the combined world religions and philosophy classes at midday on March 18, and in the late afternoon offer a program open to students, faculty and parents, part of a series that they do, entitled “Universal Wisdom: the Words That We Share.” Basically sitting on a chair, telling stories and singing songs. I think it will be fun. That will be the day before I fly back to CA in March. 

I then had lunch with Claire Tan, who was formerly married to Leonard and is a very successful lawyer in for an international software company, and as always sparkling with positive energy and life. And then that evening I met Pat and Joe Por for dinner along with the son Geoff again, and their daughter Lisa. We ate at a little Malay restaurant around the corner from the hotel and then went for dessert at a place that specialized in the typically Chinese style sweets, with bean soups and all kinds of fruits I do not recognize and one I do––durian, whose smell gently filled the place. I stuck with something that had a lot of mangoes instead. 

With Keith and Claire.

This stay feels as if it has been mostly like a series of meals and conversations––and what fun is that! Such wonderful company. I was right: I did miss this place but most of all I am very fond of this little group of friends here and I have felt more at home than ever, especially given that staying at this hotel I have had the opportunity to explore more of the city on my own on foot.

This hotel offers a free washing machine (with automatic soap!) and dryer, right across the hall from my room. So that’s all done. I will be leaving a few things behind already. And I fly to Delhi this afternoon. Another phase of the journey begins, and I am ready!

(with apologies for the formatting issues... dunno what to do...)

singapore

3 feb (or 2 feb, depending on where you are in reference to the International Date line)

 

It was 16.5 hours on the plane, the second longest trip I’ve ever made. (The longest was 17 hours from Italy to New Zealand in 2016.) It seems like a good thing to get a direct flight but wow, that is hard on the body. And I still have a hard time believing that a machine (in this case a plane) can do that kind of activity for 16/5 hours without a break. For as much as I have flown, I still am by nature a nervous flyer, though I’ve gotten better over the years. There were two pretty good batches of turbulence and it was only once I arrived here that Mark Hansen reminded me that we were flying over the atmospheric rivers that were on their way to California this weekend.

 

The border control and customs here in Singapore has been streamlined incredibly well, most of it done online beforehand, so I was off the plane and out at the meeting point in 15 minutes. I loved popping out of customs and catching the perfume of the air. Immediately I caught the smell of Asia, a sweetness and a heaviness to the humid air, so few white faces right away, tea and fried noodles. It was because of falling in love with Changi Airport that I first came to Singapore back in 2006 and it has just gotten bigger and more beautiful. Mark and Leonard met me and ushered me right to a new huge attraction smack dab in the middle of the airport, huge waterfall with a light show and bleachers all around surrounded by a shopping mall and food court. Quite a destination spot.

Every other time I have been here I have stayed with the Franciscan friars at Queen of the Angels. This time Mark insisted on getting me a hotel room in honor of my ten plus years of service as prior just ended. It’s a very interesting little place in the middle of what is known as Little India and aptly named (so I have been told) for the peripatetic ex-prior, the Wanderlust.

A tiny room really. The bed takes up almost the whole space, with a small corridor and a nice sized bathroom.

There’s an outdoor terrace with a “dipping pool” (hot tub). Perfect place for morning yoga.

The hotel is smack dabble in the middle of dozens of restaurants and shops, mostly Indian but with a smattering of Chinese and Vietnamese folks as well. The food is that Singaporean-Malayisan mixture of Indian (north and south), halal and Chinese. Though, given the choice, I picked a little Japanese restaurant, run by folks from Burma, for a snack last night, where they assembled and cooked a beautiful soufflé (really more like an omelet) right a grill in the middle of the table. I got a decent night’s sleep and set out looking for some kind of simple breakfast this morning––not an easy thing to find. There are several hawker stands around, (for which Singapore is well known), but they don’t have the kind of thing I usually eat for breakfast. 

There are lots of idly and dosa, lots of fried noodles. I found myself strangely shy to ask and order, just not used to the environment again yet. And I am having a hard time understanding most people’s accents! And they mine, I’m sure. I wound up with a nice “butterfly bun” covered with sesame seeds and two big pieces of cooked sweet potato, only to realize once I started eating them that they were basically fried as well. Delicious though. I have been known to love what is called te tarik (“pulled tea”) here until I found out that it is loaded with fat and sugar due to being made with condensed milk. I tried to get a plain old black tea with plain old milk yesterday at a stand at the airport, only to cause general confusion and wound up with a nice strong cup of tea with powdered milk. I didn’t bother this morning (not wanting to resort to Starbucks or one of the other Western franchises here) and got a nice flat white instead. I took quite a tour of the surrounding neighborhood, something I’ve rarely done (or been allowed to do) in the past especially in this area of Singapore. I’ve found a gym about a half mile away that allows three day passes for tourists, but I had to apply online and now must wait for them to get back to me.

 

All in all, I am so happy to be back here and have these days with my friends here before I head to India next week. Singapore is always a nice transition spot to India. One of our friends, Keith Toh, who lives here and also serves on New Camaldoli’s Financial Advisory Board, put together a spread sheet of my time so as to be able to make sure I get to spend time with everyone who wants to. I’m trying to get the mornings to myself, as I do today all the way until 3 PM actually. When Mark will pick me up and we will go to Leonard’s for Mass and then dinner.

 

the itinerary

I have felt something like an obligation to write (I usually journal every afternoon) but virtually no energy for it. Maybe today. 

 

So, for a first installment, here’s my itinerary––and let me stop you right there: if you are tempted to scold me for being what you think of as “too busy” or for “traveling too much,” your admonition will be wasted on me, and I might even resent you for it. I have dreamt of this sabbatical year probably for the past ten years, ever since I took on the role of prior. I joke sometimes that it was the only reason I accepted it at all, so that I could earn a sabbatical year. Short of that, it certainly has been a carrot on the end of the stick that gave me something to look forward to. And I think I have laid it out well with a nice proportion of retreat time and creative work, the things that make me really come alive.

 

I am currently in Hillsborough, a beautiful affluent neighborhood just south of San Francisco, guests of Bob and Ellen Peck. Bob was only recently received as an oblate of New Camaldoli but has slowly become a friend to several of us monks and has also served on my Financial Advisory Board (FAB), offering us his expertise especially in investments. He and Ellen extended the invitation for a stay during my sabbatical, and I thought it would be an ideal place to decompress before I begin the year in earnest. And it has been so far. More on that in a moment.

 

From here I will go to Singapore which used to be my regular stop on the way to India. We have a handful of oblates there and I have several good friends with whom I have stayed in contact since my wandering days of interreligious events. Two other members of my FAB live there and they have put together a spread sheet (seriously) of my time there so I can both get plenty of time to relax but still spend quality time with them all. From there I will go to India, the main destination of course being Shantivanam, our ashram in Tamil Nadu. There may be a few little side trips during my stay there, but the closer I get to going the less I am excited about doing anything but sitting there with my brother and sister monks and nuns. I haven’t been there for 12 years, and I am looking forward to seeing how things are in the Forest of Peace, especially under the care of their new young shepherd/prior Dorathick.

 

I will be back in California by Holy Week and will celebrate the Triduum back at the Hermitage. Just four days. In exchange, the brothers are going to lend me a car for two months. I then have an entire month booked in an apartment at the Jesuit retreat house in Los Altos, the same apartment I had when I made a wonderful eight-day retreat in 2022. That’s April. 

 

May I want to dedicate to recording, but that’s going to be a little here and there. As in many cases I have accepted work to do that gets me somewhere I want to be. Furbo! I will travel to Tucson, Arizona to help for a few days with a musicians’ songwriters’ workshop and then record with John Pennington, who will also be there, at Tom Booth studio there in Tucson. Then I will see my family in Phoenix. I am then offering a retreat for the monks of St Martin’s Abbey in Lacey, Washington, which will get me to the northwest where I will plan to record some more with my Portland friends. That’s May.

 

June I am offering three retreats in Minnesota, and that will get me to the Midwest, where I will spend time with family in Wisconsin at the cabin on the lake and then drop down into Illinois and see old friends that I have not seen in a long long time, some of whom are getting close to the end of their journey. I plan on being back in California by mid-July (for Devin and Prabha’s wedding on the 14^th, for sure!). Not exactly sure where I’ll be staying then, maybe couch surfing in Santa Cruz?

I hope to be back in Italy by August 1, and plan on spending as much time as possible for the following six weeks at the Sacro Eremo. I have events then in Poland, Germany, back in Italy and then in England from mid-September through October. The one condition I have asked my sponsors is that I can travel by train. So much more relaxed and I can see the countryside.

 

November I am in Australia, mainly to offer a retreat in Melbourne for our large community of oblates there. Maybe a few other events, musical or speaking, but after that my main goal is to find some place to retreat. A few spots have been offered and it will be summer there so I hope to be by the sea. And then one more stop back in India “on my way home” for a final meeting in Kerala for a project that Dorathick and I have worked on with our friend Petra Atweiler, a German sociologist. There is actually very little for me to do for the meeting, but I am delighted to sort of begin and end the sabbatical in India. And from there head home to Big Sur for Christmas.

At least that's the plan. I feel very open to whatever the universe and the Spirit have in store.